Moon images

These images were taken last night, a nearly first quarter Moon. I scrapped afocal imaging with my standard digital camera and opted for a nifty and affordable little CCD camera designed for astronomical imaging. I'm amazed at how much the cost of astronomical CCDs has dropped in the past 10 years. These images are stacked (several dozen individual images averaged together to produce a sharper composite image) and were taken at 1/8 second exposure. The top image shows one of the heavily cratered landscapes near Mare Nectaris. The three larger craters on the right of the image are the same craters I posted an old photographic image of a month or so ago. The bottom image is Mare Serenatatis and the Apollo 17 landing site is toward the top right of the image. Note the mountains toward the lower left and the long shadows cast toward the terminator.